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Does the Cesar Franck PQ have any friends these days? After the big three I first mentioned, where I live the classical FM station has only played the Doh and the Franck in the last year or so.

Does anyone know this one?

Music in London 1890-94G B Shaw 3 vols Constable 1932 vol 3 p 156
21 Feb 1894

...Mr Gomperz, who unearthed a very good quintet in A minor by Professor Villiers Stanford, which for some reason had not been performed in public before in London. It is a genuine piece of absolute music, alive with feeling from beginning to end.

I seem to have touched a nerve. Thank you all for giving enlightening opinions and relevant facts.

Personally I'm a big fan of V, especially as I'm an amateur violist who has lived in Belgium and plays on a Belgian made instrument. I've played a cassete tape of the va son in my car to destruction over 20 years. How about the Duo Brillant (v va p /orc or v vc p/orc) - has it been recorded?

Next time I hear the VC4 I'll locate the offending pasage.

On the radio recently I heard 2 hours of Fench violin concertos.

Of three concertos- Viotti 22 Vieuxtemps 4 and Saint Saens 3 - only the latter (the non-violinst) was good. The weird donkey braying effect in the Vieux was particularly strange.

Pianist composers can write good concertos for everything, but violinists are pretty patchy. Is it because they can't understand harmony?

Hey, do you want me to take my cricket/baseball bat home?

This thread is strictly  p with v v va vc.

All Trout quintet combo people, please go and start your own thread!

Any recommendations or opinions about this composer?

Ther seem to be at least four categories here:

1 Great works by the great composers

2 Unsung works by great composers

3 Unsung works by unsung composers

4 Unsung works of no value


Exactly how a work gets from one category to the other is not clear. Does recording count as progress from category 4 to 3?
Is it possible to be relegated?

Wow! Overload threatens. Any votes for W Berger?

What are the piano quintets to put on the list after Brahms Schumann  and Dvorak?

I'd nominate Dohnanyi and Faure.

I recently played Weidig's Little Trio Op 9 for violin viola and piano (published by Merton) It's pleasant music for amateurs.

Weidig emigrated to Chicago in 1892 (see bio on klassika.de) and wrote quite a few works between then and 1920: Symphonic Suite 1906, Symphonic Fantasy ,,Semiramis" 1914 or "Abendgang" (Eventide)for Mezzo sopr and Orch op. 29, 1915. Has snyone heard these?

Tchaik's Souvenir de Fl seems to me to be a piece for string orchestra pretending to be chamber music.  Every recording seems to be overstretched. Possibly this is a tendency of anything bigger than a string quartet.

Now that we can get a better view of Arensky thanks to IMSLP (string quartets etc) what can we nominate as Arensky's  greatest hits?

I would suggest the second piano trio- the Romance is a treasure.

I suspect Gade 's name is unpronouncable unless you'r e a Danish speaker. Isn't it close to "Gawther" with the vowels something like in "for her"?

The Gade strig octet seems to me a wonderful piece. In many ways for me it's better that the Mendelssohn which it imitates- less overstretched and orchestral.

Any other recommendations for first grade Gade? (or from those not bored by Gade or who feel he's "nothing marred" Gade)

Many writers criticise string chamber music which is not contrapuntal, especially works with loud "scrubbing" passages as "orchestral", meaning bad.

The victim is usually Brahms 1st quartet Op 51 number 1.                I disagree; I thinks it's just different.  For me it has the same kind of energy as the opening of Beethoven Op 95, or Brahms' String Quintet in G.

Other controversial works are Schubert's 2 vc quintet, and Grieg's str qt.

Any other friends of  maligned "orchestral" string chamber works?